The present invention is directed to a device for allowing at least two doors, preferably several doors, to be opened and closed, each enabling access to an enclosure that is to be protected and to which access is to be controlled. More particularly, the device of the invention allows opening and closing of the doors by a single control means.
The invention is particularly applicable to apparatus of the type for dispensing consumable products or cash dispensers or to apparatus adapted to receive payment in coins for a service, such as a travel ticket or for parking a vehicle. The invention is, thus, applicable to dispensing apparatus for consumable goods, cash dispensers, ticket dispensers or parking meters.
Such apparatuses are called upon to contain non-negligible sums of money. Apart from acts of vandalism or breaking in to which such apparatuses are subjected, with the intention of stealing the sums stored therein, they must also be protected against attempts at fraud on the part of the personnel who do have access to the interior of the apparatus, in order for example to carry out repairs or maintenance operations on the devices and systems located inside the apparatuses and necessary for them to operate. By way of example, in the case of an apparatus for dispensing tickets, this contains means for validating the coins introduced, means for collecting the money, means for printing and dispensing a ticket, computing means and any other electronic or software systems for controlling the apparatus. Moreover, it is preferable for the various devices to be placed inside different enclosures and for them to be isolated from one another. Thus, staying with the example of a ticket dispenser, the apparatus is subdivided between three separate enclosures, namely a first enclosure for the collected money (called the "cash-box"), a second enclosure for the part containing the means enabling the apparatus to function, regardless of whether they constitute mechanical or electronic units (called "technical" below), and finally a third enclosure containing the means for printing and dispensing the tickets (called "services" below). It will be understood that, in accordance with their uses and purposes, the devices respectively located in each enclosure should be accessible to different persons. Thus the operations of collecting the money resulting from transactions are independent from maintenance or repair operations on the technical part of the apparatus and equally independent of repair or maintenance visits pertaining to the tickets. These interventions are different in their nature and as a result are carried out both by different personnel and also at very different frequencies. For example, collection of the money may be effected daily, while the tickets need to be replenished every three days, and maintenance and repair operations are carried out on the technical part only on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
For reasons of security it is important to keep the enclosures mentioned above separate, having regard for the nature and purpose of the devices which they contain. Thus, it is important to avoid any attempts at fraud on the apparatus on the part of personnel called upon to intervene in and access the interior of the apparatus, with the intention of misappropriating funds or acting fraudulently in relation to tickets and/or the operating means of the apparatus.
It is thus necessary to regulate and control access to the respective enclosures in such a manner as to allow access to each of them only by authorized personnel. By way of example, a person entrusted with maintenance or repairing the service part (tickets) does not normally need to intervene in the operating means of the apparatus (technical part) nor in the collecting means (cash-box).
In this sort of apparatus it is known to provide an access door for each of the enclosures, each door being fitted with a lock operated by its own key. Thus, a ticket dispenser is provided in known manner with several distinct doors, adapted to be opened by means of their own different keys, so that several different keys are associated with each apparatus. It will readily be understood that the management of such a closure system becomes extremely complex when the number of apparatuses becomes relatively large.
Another known solution consists in providing a single enclosure provided with a single door and comprising a space inside defining a sub-enclosure containing the cash-box for example and accessible by means of another key. Although, by giving the person in charge of the cash-box the two keys, this known system allows prevention of access to the cash-box by personnel only having the key to the main door, by definition it does not prevent the person responsible for the cash-box having access to the rest of the apparatus, which can lead to the above-mentioned consequences. Another disadvantage of the single door is that this has to be large, in order to allow ready access to the enclosures or to the single enclosure defined inside the apparatus, which increases the danger of injury for persons on account of the large area and the long edges of the door.
Thus, in the prior art, whether the apparatus is equipped with a plurality of doors each operated by its own key, which allows the area of each door to be reduced and thus its vulnerability to be reduced, but which leads to the disadvantage of very complex management, or whether it is equipped with a single door giving access to different doors located inside, which makes the main door vulnerable, the problem of separate access to each enclosure inside the apparatus is not fully solved.
Known devices that allow the opening and closing of doors, each of them giving access to one enclosure, do not provide satisfaction and require the manufacturer of such apparatus to make a compromise between the contradictory requirements explained above.